I'm just going to do bullet points since I'm so tired.
- No news yet from the research study. Hopefully early this week, maybe tomorrow.Joseph lost one of his two top front teeth. He's lost 3 lower teeth, but this is his first upper tooth. He looks really cute. It happened last week in church, he had just gone into his primary classroom and his teacher gave each kid a cookie. The cookie was a little hard (one of those sandwich type cookies) as he bit into it, and he said when he was chewing he felt something kind of like a rock, and then he felt to see if his tooth was out, and it was! But then he accidentally swallowed it. LOL!! Anyway, it was just the tiniest bit traumatic for him, so he came into Young Women with me and I wiped his mouth (there's always a little blood when a tooth comes out), and he sat next to me for the rest of the time. The tooth fairy did manage to find him and give him a dollar anyway, although Joseph very vocally does NOT believe in the tooth fairy!
- The boys redeemed their first 3 weeks worth of chore stars (5 cents per star), and bought Webkinz animals. I hadn't heard of these at all until like 2 weeks ago when another little kid brought hers to Tae Kwon Do and a couple of the moms started talking about them. And then the boys spent the night at Adam's house when I went to Houston, and he has several, and then Webkinz were all they could talk about for a few days. So this is the deal with Webkinz. They are these stuffed animals, there are lots of different kinds. They're pretty average stuffed animals, just a step above beanie babies. But each one comes with a tag and when you open it up, there is a secret code for you to be able to sign up and log into "Webkinz World." Once in Webkinz World, you find yourself in this room with your virtual pet. You start out with a certain amount of money, and you need to keep your pet fed and exercised and played with. So you buy food, you can buy furniture for his room, when you get more money you can actually buy more rooms, even a whole house, and a yard, etc. You can buy clothes, and pay for your pet to take classes. There is a virtual store where you buy things, a "Webkinz Academy" where you take classes (math classes have simple math games, language classes simple word games, etc.). There is a club house where you can take your pet to run on a treadmill or jump on a trampoline, or go into a game room and play games with other virtual pets who are also logged in at the same time. You can get the user ID's of your friends, and "invite" their Webkinz over to play (you both have to be online at the same time, of course). There is an employment office where you can get a "job" and earn more money. The jobs are all various types of games (trying to aim and throw newspapers to houses, for example), and there's also an arcade and lots of other places to play games or take quizzes or whatever to earn money. Anyway, it is VERY involved. It's pretty fun for the kids, but unfortunately, mine are not *quite* old enough or adept enough with the mouse to figure it all out on their own, so I've spent quite a few hours this week on Webkinz World with my boys. Sigh... I guess it's ok quality time with mom, but I'd MUCH rather be doing something *real* with them, rather than playing in some virtual world with them. I expect after a few weeks it will lose its novelty.
- A week and a half ago we had our YW New Beginnings night. The theme was "A pageant of values," and it was kind of like a beauty pageant, with each girl representing a value, wearing a formal dress of that color, and being "interviewed" with questions about that value. It was really, really nice. It sounds a little cheesy with just a brief description, but trust me, it was very nice and very spiritual. So I was responsible for coming up with a purple and orange dress. I remembered Rosalynde's old royal purple prom dress from way back when, and thought that would work. But when mama dug it out of the closet, over time it had changed from purple to red! Isn't that odd? So she sent Rachel's Rose Court dress (lavendar, close enough to purple, right?), and another old prom dress that wasn't orange, more of a peach, but close enough. Well, I swear that sizes have changed over the past 15-20 years, because that size 6 dress was the SMALLEST size 6 ever. I can squeeze into a size 6 if I have to, but no WAY was that zipper going to close over my rib cage, and it didn't come any closer on the girl who was supposed to wear it either. I felt awful, because 15 year olds are so body-sensitive anyway, I felt terrible for bringing over a dress that she then had to tell me was too small. So I ended up finding this bright orange satin-type material, and desperately sewing an orange formal dress for her to wear on Wednesday night. I finished Wed. afternoon, and it didn't fit the girl exactly (I was mostly trying to fit it on myself, something that is VERY difficult to do by yourself!); it was a bit too big, but better too big than too small. So anyway, if anyone ever has a need for a modest bright orange formal dress, let me know! The girl who wore Rachel's dress was so thrilled to be wearing a Rose Court dress (she's originally from OC, so she knew all about the Rose Parade). I took a bunch of pictures (naturally, it was a Pageant after all!) and have spent a few hours editing the pictures and putting them all up on our Young Women blog that I keep.
- Um, let's see. I got a cold this week. Ugh. I got allergies this year, too, from all the cedar trees that pollinate in January around here, so a cold on top of that has been a little miserable. Mosey got it too, but he was really only feeling bad for one day. I'm still dragging but hoping tomorrow is better.
- I've been so, so, so tired (MS fatigue tired), and my legs are getting bad once again. We went to Barnes and Noble on Friday night to buy some birthday presents and to have hot chocolate at the cafe. But by the end of the day, I've really had it. Even though I hadn't really done much during that day. I had gotten up and dressed, got the kids fed breakfast and off to school, dropped off Mosey for preschool, then came back and sat at my desk and paid bills and filed papers before going to get Mosey from school again (and when I drop him off and pick him up, I mean that very literally-- the school sends someone out to my car to get him, and then brings him to my car when I come pick him up). Then I sat and did Webkinz with him until Brigham and Joseph came home, and then I pretty much just sat around all afternoon doing piano lessons with the boys, and reading, etc. But anyway, all that walking (sarcasm) really wore me out and Ben had to heavily support me just to walk back to the kids' section, and then to the cafe and then out again. It's pretty frustrating. But so far no trouble breathing, and my trunk strength is still ok. I know I should call in for another round of steroids, but I really don't want to. I vascillate from the mornings thinking I'm ok, this is tolerable, to the nights thinking this is NOT ok, I can't stand it! It just seems so futile, since I know the steroids will make me feel miserable for 2 weeks, and I'll only feel good for about 4 weeks before everything comes back. Is it worth it? Obviously not quite yet since I'm not yet thoroughly motivated to call my doctor. I think I'll wait until I hear back for sure from Houston, and then talk to the nurse there. I know I'll be going in for a ton of baseline MRI's, and maybe they'll have an opinion on whether they'd want me to wait until after the MRI's before doing another round of solumedrol, of if they don't care, or whatever. It's just really annoying. Last night my bathroom floor was really bugging me. I wanted to take a bath, but the floor was dirty and it just seemed yucky. The floor just gets dirty so fast (white tile), and it grosses me out to walk on dirty bathroom floors, especially with wet feet after a bath, so I REALLY wanted to sweep it. Ok, so it is not a big bathroom (anyone who's been to my house can vouch for that), and sweeping it is maybe a 1 minute task at the *most.* So I dragged myself over to the laundry room to get the broom, dragged myself back to the bathroom and attempted to sweep. I did get it swept, but I ended up sitting on the floor, scooting myself along, mostly sweeping with the whisk broom and dustpan because after that LONG trek to the laundry room and back, my legs would no longer cooperate. It is so annoying to have even the very simplest of tasks just be so overwhelmingly difficult!!
- Ok, whining over. The boys have been pretty good. They've said some funny things recently. Mosey has this uncanny ability to drive his big brothers crazy at times (and vice versa, I must say), and one afternoon a few days ago Brigham came in from outside really frustrated with Mosey. I asked him what was wrong and he said with this BIG dramatic sigh and a VERY exasperated voice, "Mosey just messed up the WHOLE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!!" Oh my goodness! I know Mosey can cause trouble, but wow, that's quite a LOT of trouble for one four year old! And then this afternoon we came home from church and I told the boys they all had to pick up toys while I made dinner. Mosey quickly informed me that there were way too many toys for him to pick up, so I told him maybe from now on he needs to think about that before getting out quite so many toys! He thought about that for a second and then said, "I know, but I just keep forgetting to pick up all my toys." Oh, boy, don't I know it!
- I observed something Friday night and yesterday that I've been waiting for ever since the twins were born. One of my boys so engrossed in a book, he didn't even hear me when I spoke to him (several times). Joseph is such a good reader now, and he loves it. He's been reading the "Magic Treehouse" series at school (there are about 27 of these so far, they are short chapter books, about 75 pages long, about this sister and brother who go back in time to different points in history and have adventures). So he got one (#7) at Barnes and Noble Friday night, read nearly half of it while we were there, and then finished the rest of it yesterday after we got home from a birthday party. I'm so excited for him! I remember the first time being bitten by the book bug (with "The Littles" series), and have been smitten ever since! Brigham isn't *quite* there yet, but his teacher just did reading evaluations last week, and emailed me and told me that not only is Brigham caught up, but he is now reading *above level!* I am very proud of him. Reading isn't super-easy for him and he gets quickly frustrated, but he's been working hard and it's paying off.
- I've been reading the boys"Where the Red Fern Grows," and we just read last night the chapter when Rubin Pritchfield gets killed when he falls on Billy's axe while charging to try and kill Old Dan and Little Ann. I had forgotten that section, but when I got to it last night, it all flooded back. That part of the book really disturbed me as a little girl. But I read it anyway, and we had a small discussion about how Rubin wasn't a nice boy, and had made a series of bad choices, but he still didn't deserve to die and this was why Billy was so very sad even though Rubin had been so terrible to him. Then today during Sacrament Meeting, Joseph whispered to me asking if I thought "Where the Red Fern Grows" is a true story or fiction. I told him it was fiction, but probably based on some real things that happened to the author or people he knew while growing up. I hope this story isn't too intense for my little guys. I don't know how we'll handle the end. Joseph named his Webkinz dog "Little Ann," and I'm afraid he's really going to be devastated. Should I maybe accidentally "lose" the book? And somehow never manage to get to the library to check out another copy? Or just read it and be glad that my kids can be introduced to grief and tragedy through a fictional story and not actually through real life experiences?
- The boys are kind of fixated on the macabre and dark aspects of life. A couple of days ago on the way home from somewhere, they were all sitting in the back of the car describing what they thought Hell would be like (monsters and scary bugs and fire and stuff). And yes, we have talked about how Hell isn't actually a place with fire and brimstone, but they're imaginations go there anyway. And they like to play "Voldemort" a lot, coming up with these story lines with a stuffed animal or something playing the part of Voldemort, and various other stuffed animals (or whatever) fighting him. Maybe we need to stick with some lighter, happier literature for a while.
- Ok that's it. It's 5:30 PM and I got just about 9 hours of sleep last night, but I'm still soooooo tired I can't keep my eyes open. Must go lay down for a while before it's bedtime for boys.
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